Luigi
by lugialapis
Summary: I suck at continuing to write stories... must... put... new...chapter... up... and then decide the fate of all my characters! :
1. Initial Impressions

**Luigi's POV**

Luigi hated himself. He hated it when he had to watch Mario swiftly dodge all banana peels while they were Kart-riding and come in first place, while he made second place. He hated it when he had _tried_ to get three power stars for Mario and Rosalina, but ended up having Mario save him each time. He hated how Peach fawned all over Mario whenever he said he got a star in his stupid Italian accent. Of course, Mario was his brother, so he couldn't ever really hate him, but if only Mario could get second place for a change, or if Luigi could have a beautiful princess draped over him for once, it would be nice. And Daisy was pretty cute.

"Luigi!" Mario called. "Look at this!"

Luigi sighed and walked into Mario's "cute" little trophy room with all his Power Stars and Shine Sprites and Peach's "rescue me" letters and who knows what. This had better be good.

"Look at this!" Mario repeated, passing Luigi a letter. Luigi could tell it was from Peach even before he opened it from the sickening pink envelope. He rolled his eyes and opened it. It was an invite.

_Dear Mario and Luigi _("My name comes second again," Luigi thought.)_,_

_Princess Peach and Princess Daisy are hosting a ball! One hundred handpicked people are selected to attend at the East Tower Ballroom on the 18__th__ at 4:00. Food and drinks are provided._

_Love from,_

_Peach and Daisy_

Underneath the message was a footnote written in the most beautiful, intimidating script that Luigi had ever seen.

Note: Mario, I'd like you to come a week early. Luigi, Daisy insists that you come early too.

Mario looked at the date on the personalized Mario-fighting-Bowser calendar and jumped. Luigi looked at it too and realized that the 11th was only two days away. He gave Mario a worried glance.

"How are we going to get there in two days?" Mario asked Luigi.

Luigi spotted a magazine on the floor and grinned at its title. "Go-Kart rental," he replied, as Mario smiled. They grabbed the magazine and ran out the door.

The Kart rental was inside SuperKarts, a popular Kart store. Mario and Luigi eyed the gleaming Karts and motorcycles longingly, but their plumber and carpenter salaries combined wouldn't be able to make it. They walked up to the little rental counter at the corner of the store and rang the bell. Up popped a little Yoshi, who smiled and showed them a large catalogue.

"This is Go Kart rental… how may I help you?" he asked.

"Uhhhhhhh…." Luigi said, flipping through the catalogue. "We would like two of the small Karts."

The Yoshi typed numbers into a keypad on the wall and a garage door opened. "Right this way," he said. The three of them walked into a large garage with everything from the smallest motorcycle to the largest kart. Eventually, they came to a stop at the saddest looking row they had ever seen. All the karts were run down and very rusty. The Yoshi pointed to two of the ones at the front. They had half-deflated tires, punctured seats, and rusty door hinges. Urrrrrgh. Mario sighed and started filling out the forms, until…

"OH MY GOD!!" the Yoshi yelled. "YOU'RE MARIO, AREN'T YOU? YOU'VE KICKED BOWSER'S BUTT LIKE A MILLION TIMES! CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?"

"Well…" Mario said. "It takes a lot of work to do an autograph, and we could use a nicer kart…"

They walked out of the store and got into the karts that they were able to buy instead of rent because of one little autograph, and the Yoshi waved them off, holding his autograph book like it was made of glass. Maybe it could be a good thing sometimes that Mario was a superhero.

The karts were glossy, with leather seats and several sophisticated dials that did who-knew-what. Mario had gotten a black cart with flames on the side and Luigi had picked a blue one with a green stripe running around it. The karts were faster than the stupid clown machine that Bowser had, and all the bumps on the road seemed to flatten out for them. Mario even found a lever that popped out a tray with a snack and water on it, though a full meal would have been nicer.

Finally, they stopped at the castle entrance, right under a statue of Princess Peach. Getting out of their karts, they locked the doors and showed their invite to the toad guards, who bowed and let them through. Yeah, this was going to be good.

Luigi felt the tiniest bit self conscious as all the smiling toads at the entrance waved their flags and blew trumpets. Mario, however, walked straight by them with a smug expression on his face.

This is a first… Luigi thought, hiding from the staring people by standing in Mario's shadow. Eventually, he became at ease with the staring and let himself enjoy the castle, taking in the high ceiling chandeliers and the beautiful red carpet that led them up a spiraling set of stairs, when Luigi tripped, tumbling head-first down the stairs, and straight into the arms of the girl that ensured that he never had nightmares by coming into his dreams every night.

"Ummm…" Daisy said, trying not to laugh. "Well, you don't normally say 'hi' this way, but it really puts some drama in it!"

"Sorry," Luigi squeaked. "Princess, I really never wanted to… see, I tripped and then you were there, and-"

"Stop calling me Princess or I will slap you," she said, as Peach came into the hall to see what the matter was. She giggled at the sight of Luigi rubbing his head in Daisy's arms, and her eyes twinkled.

"Awwwww, how cute!" she said, walking over to Mario and kissing him full on the mouth.

"Shut up," said Daisy, blushing to the roots of her gorgeous long hair and letting Luigi up. Luigi was blushing too, and he cleared his throat, walking up the stairs again and breaking into a run as soon as he reached the top. He felt dizzy, and he asked a nearby luma where his room was. The luma giggled and led him to a door at the end of the corridor, where he fed the luma a starbit, shut the door, and collapsed on his bed. He had been in her arms, something he had dreamed of doing for years, even if completely by accident. He looked out the window at the gradually darkening sky, and fell asleep.


	2. Clumsy Collisions

Daisy's POV

_Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh m-_ Peach interrupted Daisy's train of thought by asking her if she felt okay. Daisy nodded her head once and snapped back to reality long enough to excuse herself and head to the bathroom, where she splashed water on her face and shook her head in a daze. Luigi had been in her arms, something she had been dreaming of for years, even if it was completely by accident. She took a quick shower, letting the warm water loosen the tight muscles in her back, and spent about five minutes getting rid of the silk tops that Peach had forced her to wear to find a regular shirt and shorts. She snuggled under the covers on her bed and switched off her bedside lamp, thoughts full of Luigi. He was really cute, once you got over the fact that he was a carpenter and had no sense of balance at ALL. She thought back over what had happened back at the stairs and decided she'd get Peach to do the "See-if-the-guy-you-like-likes-you-back-by-breaking-down-everything-he-does" analysis in the morning. Remembering the blush on Luigi's face, Daisy tossed and turned for hours before finally falling asleep.

Daisy woke up to a tickle on her nose. The first thing she saw when her eyes opened were long blonde curls almost entirely covering up the heart-shaped face behind them.

"I brought your breakfast!" Peach said in a singsong voice.

"What is it, Peach? Couldn't you leave me alone for a day?"

Peach sighed and dropped her girly voice. "Don't play dumb, Daisy. You know I came here for a full-out love story."

"I…er…" Daisy cleared her throat. "I…don't…I mean…" Peach waited patiently for ten seconds before the analysis.

"Okay, lets get this straight. Everyone in the kingdom knows that you like Luigi, and you, Mario, and I know that Luigi likes you back. You saw him blush and stutter in the two minutes that he was in your arms. You are _still_ trying to deny that you like him for some unknown reason. WHAT IS YOUR FREAKING PROBLEM?" Peach shouted. Snores across the hall faltered.

"Shhh!" Daisy whispered and settled back in her bed, taking a bite out of a cinnamon roll, wondering why she wasn't giving her usual ten-page lecture. "Okay, I do like him. What's wrong with that? And by the way, I will murder you if you tell this to anyone. By the way, I don't _really_ like him. Actually… I don't even like him at all! I was…" Daisy finished rambling, knowing that there was no way she could take back the fact that she said she liked Luigi. "Ahhhhh… I'm an idiot. Come on, let's go play tennis or something."

Daisy was ready in no time, but Peach had to choose between her two identical hot pink miniskirts, which took a while. After coming out, she nearly screamed at Daisy's shorts and shirt, and forced her into a yellow miniskirt, too.

"Should we invite Mario and Luigi?" Peach asked, her eyes twinkling.

"NO! I need at least _one_…Peach?" Daisy trailed off. Peach had already run off to call them. Daisy sighed. No point trying to convince Peach at all.

Peach's dressing issue had taken up most of the morning, and it was noon by the four of them got outside. It wasn't a great time to play tennis, especially since Daisy was trying not to get sweaty in front of Luigi. It didn't really matter because Luigi had sweat pouring down his face from nervousness anyways. What a great "double date". Daisy was going to join Peach on their side of the court, but Peach stopped her.

"Daisy, why don't you talk to your guest today? I'll take Mario, and you can be with Luigi."

Luigi tried to keep his face serious, but Daisy could see that he was delighted. She half-skipped to his side.

"Hey, Luigi," she said.

"Ummm, hi, Daisy," he replied. And that was it.

Daisy had an eye and an ear on Luigi the whole time, waiting for him to say something, but he stood with his shoulders hunched, cringing away from the ball when it came to him.

_It's probably because he's embarrassed or nervous, _Daisy thought. But she knew that it was still a problem because she was nervous too and she wasn't frozen like Luigi. She stared at Luigi as if he was going to snap out of it soon, occasionally reaching out for the ball.

_I like him, but our personalities are so different!_ she thought. _If he ever works up the nerve to ask me out, I'm going to fix his courage issues before anything else!_

"Incoming!" Mario yelled, and Luigi finally came out of his reverie. At the last second, he flailed his racket wildly, and though he hit an excellent forehand, the racket went flying out of his hand. A second too late, Daisy looked up and saw a spinning racket coming towards her, and then total darkness.

"You threw that racket pretty hard, Luigi. Pity that the one time you aimed right, you ended up hitting your girlfriend." A thump indicated that a chair had fallen over and a "OW! MARIO, YOU IDIOT!" told Daisy that Luigi had kicked Mario and had near broken his leg doing so. It sounded like Mario laughed and said something that made Luigi madder. Daisy moaned. Her right eye was throbbing and her hands were scraped from when she had tried to break her fall. She tried to open her eyes, but only succeeded in opening her left one.

"Shut up," Peach's voice whispered. "I think she's waking up."

But Luigi didn't listen. He bent over and grabbed Daisy's hand and moaned, "I'm so _sorry_, Daisy! It was all my fault… I never meant to…please say you'll forgive me… I'm _so sorry…_please forgive me!"

Daisy smiled. Maybe Luigi had hope after all.


	3. Peptalk Pressure

Luigi's POV

**Luigi's POV**

Luigi knew that Mario was doing all he could to keep from laughing as he teased Luigi about hitting his "girlfriend", and fury bubbled inside him. Did he laugh the time when Mario was tricked into giving up a power star to a little Toad, or when Mario had made a fool of himself in front of Peach the first time he met her? Why did Mario _always_ have to treat him like a child? He was only a little bit older than Luigi. Luigi stuck his foot out and kicked Mario with all his might, and…

"OW! MARIO, YOU IDIOT!" Luigi cried, and Mario really _did_ laugh this time. Daisy's left eye slowly flickered, and Luigi looked at her.

"Shut up," Peach's voice whispered. "I think she's waking up."

Luigi didn't listen. He grabbed Daisy's hand and started a long apology while Mario and Peach rolled their eyes simultaneously.

"I'm so _sorry_, Daisy! It was all my fault… I never meant to…please say you'll forgive me… I'm _so sorry…_please forgive me!"

Luigi thought that Daisy smiled, but it looked more like a half-grimace than a grin. A minute later, Daisy squeezed his hand and teasingly punched his shoulder.

"I promise you that I'll kill you the moment I can use my arms and legs again," she muttered while giving Luigi a dazzling smile.

"I guess I better run while I can," Luigi said.

"Don't go! I mean..." Daisy blushed. Luigi was nonplussed. Did Daisy take him seriously? And did she just say that she wanted him here? And _blush?_ Luigi frowned. He had probably misunderstood.

Daisy started to get up and shook off the three pairs of hands restraining her.

"You guys are acting as if I'm dying. Gosh. Ease up on me!" she said, her usual snappiness slowly returning to her voice. "How long have I been out?"

"A while," Peach said, the impatience clear in her voice.

"It's time for dinner already," Mario said. "Do you want to eat in here?"

"No! I've spent enough time here. Why don't we go outside?" Daisy asked.

After a few not-so-ebullient tries to get Daisy to eat inside, they kept pace with Daisy's slight limping all the way to the kitchen where they got their dinner from a couple of Toads and headed outside. They settled down by a tree that had been trimmed and luma-lighted for the ball. They watched the lumas giggle and float around the tree looking for starbits in silence for a while, until Mario spoke up.

"So, what are you planning on doing for the ball?" he asked Peach in a nervous voice, knowing that he would get a _very_ long explanation in response.

Peach perked up. "Oh, it's going to be splendid!" she gushed. "The dance is going to be held in the East Tower Ballroom and we're going to be eating in the garden just outside it. I already have the decorations going up, and we'll have the "cutest couple" contest going and all that!…"

Luigi's insides squirmed when she mentioned couples. Everyone naturally assumed that he was going with Daisy, but he technically hadn't asked her yet. He went over the ways he could mention it to her.

_Oh, Daisy, my love for you is infinite and going to the ball with you would be something beyond my wildest dreams. Will you go with me?_ Luigi snorted as Daisy raised her eyebrows at him questionably. It sounded like he was proposing to her.

_Well, Daisy, you're the only one left here, so I guess I don't have any choice but to go with you to the ball. Don't try flirting with me while we're there. _Ha. As if. She'd probably slap him.

Writing her a letter, getting Mario to tell her, not asking her and having a horrible time at the ball… none of them seemed to work. His ideas were getting crazier and crazier as he considered cutting off her chocolate brown hair and making the ransom be that she go to the ball with him, or even bribing everyone to pressure her into going with him.

_That's stupid,_ he thought. _I don't want to force her into this._

And then there was the fact that he didn't get any time with Daisy alone, especially with Peach not so much poking as stuffing her nose in other people's business. _If _Luigi worked up the nerve, he was going to have to ask her in front of others.

"Luigi, did you hear me? I said that you were going to say a few words at the ball!"

"I'm going to say a few words at the ball?" Luigi parroted. "I can't do that! I'll die up there!"

Peach smiled artificially. "We've all had our first times, Luigi," she said. "But if you don't get your butt up there and say something, I'm afraid I'm going to have to make life difficult for you."

Luigi rolled his eyes, and they finished their meal and walked inside.

It was one hour later, and Luigi was in his room, worrying about getting Daisy alone. If only the girls had to do the asking out.

"Luigi…you there?" Mario said from outside the door. Luigi sighed.

"Yeah, bro. Come on in." Mario came in holding something, which Luigi realized a second too late was a tux.

"Awwww, bro, come on! Isn't it a bit early?" Luigi whined.

"No. It's the 13th. Five days, or more like four, since it's already the end of the day."

"Fair point," Luigi said reluctantly. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Nope!" Mario laughed. I don't get why you're so gloomy. Aren't you happy that you're going out with Daisy now?

"Uhhh, well, I haven't asked her out yet. And I don't know how." Luigi muttered, looking ashamed.

"You need a life, bro. All you've got is a girl who's deluded herself into thinking that you're handsome," he said. "I don't think you'll be able to get her alone, though. She likes you, you know. But don't wait hoping that she'll ask you. Do it before you go gray with the stress."

"I realized _that_ much," Luigi said. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Don't answer that," he added, and Mario grinned.

"Fine, no comment then. But you seriously have to ask Daisy soon." he said, his tone getting serious. "There. All done. I'm leaving your suit in your closet so Peach doesn't dry-clean it _again_."

"'Kay," Luigi said, his hopes lifting. "And thanks."

"No problem, little bro. Good luck," he said, and closed the door.


	4. Daring Dresses

Daisy's POV

Daisy woke up to the most depressing sky ever. It wasn't cloudy or gray… that would have been something. The sky was a pale blue with no clouds or birds in sight. Blankness. Nothingness. Luigi-has-not-said-a-word-to-me-about-the-ball-yet-ness. Daisy heaved herself out of bed and took a shower, then walked into her closet.

_The nerve of that idiot!_ Daisy thought. All her "non-Peach-y" clothes had been removed and her closet was now full of frilly gowns. Stupid Peach. Daisy spent thirty minutes taking the frills and ribbon and pearls out of a pale gold and sunflower yellow gown. _It isn't as bad as it had been now that I'm through with it, _Daisy thought. _It actually looks kind of nice. Strange._ Daisy put on a simple pair of silver earrings and necklace and came out of her room.

"Urgh!" Peach said. Apparently she had been waiting outside Daisy's room since whenever she had pulled her little stunt. "You ruin everything."

"That was evil," Daisy said, cracking up.

"I should have forced you to wear a proper outfit." Peach huffed. "Anyways, let's get going. We'll need the whole day."

"To do...?" Daisy asked.

"Come on! We have to get you a dress _sometime_."

"A dress…" Daisy said.

"For the ball! Got any more stupid questions?"

"You were wrong, Peach. _You're _the one who ruins everything."

Peach grabbed Daisy's arm and unceremoniously threw her down the stairs.

After a short but heated argument, Daisy got her way of buying an outfit and getting adjustments done after. Peach would rather have had a custom gown, but Daisy won over by telling her that they wouldn't be ready for the ball in time if they did that.

"What place do you think we should go to?" Daisy asked.

"Hmmmm…" Peach said. "Toad Tailors? They have some gorgeous stuff, but the colors are never quite right. I went there to pick out an outfit for my last birthday, and there wasn't any petal pink! Can you believe that? I had to settle for _carnation pink_, urgh! No, we should leave Toad Tailors alone. I think we should try Goomba Gowns. Why on earth they would name one of the best stores ever after those stupid little creatures, though…"

"Whatever you like."

"Always!"

The trip to the store was long, and Daisy was forced to endure Peach's bubbly attitude for what seemed like hours. It was Mario this and Mario that, and also a lecture about table manners and proper dress-choosing techniques. Daisy had cracked long ago, but she managed to stumble to the entrance and give Peach a well-deserved punch to the shoulder. Peach merely looked at Daisy and redid her hair.

"You call this a store? It looks like a palace!" Daisy murmured, unable to hide her excitement at the beautifully decorated place. Peach had been right; the only thing keeping this place from being perfect was its name. The windows displayed dresses of every shade that even Daisy loved. The high ceiling was a light cream color that would have been unremarkable if it hadn't had beautiful red and lavender silk streamers draped from corner to corner with a single orb of light suspended from the middle. The store wasn't arranged like other stores either; while most stores needed all the space they had to fill up with outfits, this one was so huge that the many clothes ran along the sides of the walls with nothing but a square shaped jewelry counter in the center. The store was nearly empty, and one look at the price tags said why.

"Don't you think this is a bit over our budget?" Daisy asked uncertainly.

"It's worth it. And besides, this is the first time I'm forcing you to splurge on an outfit. I should do it more often."

"Yeah, I suppose that with all your shopping, you have more to worry about for how much you spend."

"You know what, Daisy? I haven't heard an insult from you since we set foot in this store. Do you actually _like_ it?"

"No! Well, yeah. It's just like choosing a theme for my room, or maybe deciding what gift to give somebody. I'd much rather be playing Mario Party or tennis, Luigi and his klutziness excluded, but this isn't as bad as I thought it would be."

"A start," Peach muttered. Daisy thought she looked rather disappointed.

"Let's get your dress done first," Daisy said. "I want to get the lectures and boringness over with."

As they walked to the pink outfits, Daisy noticed that they were the only things grouped by color, and that the prices for the pink stuff were even higher than for the rest of the clothes. Peach was apparently a regular and much anticipated visitor.

"I wonder… Daisy, do you think that 2 inch or 1.7 inch ribbons would look better on a rose pink strapless dress with a 1 foot and 4.5 inch train?"

Daisy was positive that only Peach would notice a detail that tiny, but she liked the idea of freaking Peach out.

"I think that a 1.85-inch ribbon is required with the center covered in a square centimeter of half-white and half-salmon pink fabric and a sequin placed three-fourths of the way down from it, with the ribbon width not exceeding 0.39 centimeters, but not any less than 0.36 centimeters." Daisy quite enjoyed the effect of that one.

"This one should work!" Peach said four hours later. Ignoring Daisy glaring at her in the corner, she examined the outfit she had chosen, checking for a minor flaw. What killed Daisy was that it only took her fifteen minutes to find that outfit, but she had to alternate between trying that and some other outfit on over and over until she had checked it against every pink outfit in the store. The bright side was that the dress looked nice, though Daisy thought that four hours was a lousy exchange for it. The spaghetti straps that held it in place each had a 1.85-inch ribbon that was 0.37 centimeters wide on it because Peach had actually taken Daisy seriously. Her dress was so pale that Daisy could hardly tell if it was pink or white, and tiny gold sequins adorned the whole thing.

"Okay, this will do," Peach said with a smile on her face. "Come on, we don't have much time to find you a dress."

"We have three hours." Daisy said incredulously.

"I know! We gotta hurry!"

Daisy picked out an outfit in just a few minutes. Straying from her usual yellow theme, she picked a midnight blue gown that skimmed the floor and was sprinkled with miniscule silver crystals that made the dress look like the night sky. And, most of all, the dress was-

_"Strapless?" _Daisy had squeaked.

"Don't worry, I'll help you with it. Trust me, it's almost like it has straps on it," Peach had said.

"Ummmm, I'll try it, I guess," Daisy had muttered, and Peach had grabbed it from her to examine.

Daisy picked out a simple silver necklace and earrings that Peach wouldn't let her put down when she realized that it was made of white gold and diamonds. Peach, on the other hand, had gold earrings, bracelets, hair accessories, and a gold necklace with a topaz pendant.

"You look beautiful!" Peach said when Daisy tried everything on.

"Thanks. It'll make up for some of the dorkiness when I go to the ball alone."


	5. Pressureophobia

Luigi's POV

_I'm gonna ask her. I know it. I'll walk straight up to her, look her in the eye, and ask her. _Luigi was scared to death about asking Daisy to the ball. He had tried to ask her yesterday, only to find out that Peach was dragging her through the whole outfit procedure from Mario, and apparently, she had gone without throwing a tantrum. This worried him even more. What if she found someone else to go with? Did she? Could she? _Would _she? The thought occupied Luigi all through breakfast, and Daisy nearly gave him a heart attack when he looked up to see her next to him.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Luigi hollered, spilling his glass of orange juice and knocking his half-finished croissant off the table.

"Did I scare you?" Daisy asked. Luigi could tell that she hadn't intended to do so but was proud of herself anyways.

"Of course not," he replied weakly. "Only surprised me. A bit."

"Yeah, whatever," she said sarcastically. "Whatever you say."

"And now that I have no breakfast, let's go outside so you can tell me whatever you wanted to." His real intention was to get some privacy so he could ask Daisy to the ball, so he was surprised when his voice didn't get squeaky like it always did when he was fibbing.

"Oh! I was actually going to say the same thing," Daisy said, blushing slightly. Luigi wanted to put two and two together, but he was afraid that four might be the wrong answer. Most likely Daisy wanted the fresh air or something.

They walked together towards a patch of tame piranha plants in silence. Luigi cleared his throat.

"Um, how's it going?" he asked.

"Uh, fine. It's a nice day outside?" Usually Daisy was very shrewd with her answers. It was really unlike her to say something that idiotic.

_I can't be talking,_ Luigi thought. He had said much more retarded things.

"So………" Luigi trailed off. He couldn't do this.

"What did you want to tell me?" Daisy asked impatiently.

"Um," Luigi chickened out. "I wanted to say that… your, erm, hair looks nice." Which left Daisy looking both perplexed and suspicious as she walked away.

Just an hour later, Luigi found another opportunity to get Daisy alone when she was playing with a luma that giggled happily as she tickled it. He promised himself not to back off this time. He walked towards her as slowly as he could, and finally sat down by her.

"Hi," she said in a monotone. "You seem jumpy."

"I am."

"What were you going towards at breakfast? I know you weren't finished then, and I _think _I know what you were going to say."

"Um, yeah. I was going to get to that. See, I have to te-"

"Luigi! I need your help!" Luigi sighed and looked around to see Mario jumping like crazy towards him with a piranha plant biting on to his foot.

"Coming," he said. "Bye, Daisy!" Ugh.

"Wait! What about what you were going to tell me?"

"Shut up," Luigi muttered, not wanting Mario to hear. He doubted he would with all the yelling he was doing though.

Lunch came and went with only a few awkward glances at Daisy. She was spending most of her time glaring at him, and Peach was trying not to laugh as she guessed what was happening. Why did she have to analyze everything that he and Daisy did? After lunch, Luigi looked at Daisy meaningfully and she got up to follow him to the lake. Peach looked like she wanted to interrupt but she seemed to be holding it in for Daisy's sake.

After they got to the lake, Luigi took a deep breath.

"What I wanted to say was-" His words were interrupted by a clap of thunder and a sudden downpour of rain.

"Let's go inside!" he growled. His bad luck was following him like a dog more than ever on the wrong day.

When they got inside, Luigi had to leave Daisy so both of them could dry off and change. He was inwardly cursing himself every step of the way. Mario was right, it looked like he would be forced to ask her in front of at least one other person. He hardly noticed what he was doing as he changed and walked back to the main hall…

_This isn't the main hall, _he thought. _It's the east chamber… no, the west one… oh NO, I'm lost! _He stumbled along the corridor, and his measly amount of traction wasn't helping as he bumped into portraits and pillars at every turn of the seemingly endless path. Suddenly, Luigi heard something on the left. Luigi found a crack in the bottom of the wall and peered in. He blushed as he saw either Peach's or Daisy's bare legs, though judging from the gold and yellow wall, they were Daisy's, and heard a sound like clothes hangers being pushed aside. Thank goodness the crack wasn't higher up. He quietly got up and realized that there were rooms all around the corridor he was in. He turned around and started walking back, catching bits of conversation around him if he listened hard.

"Honestly, you couldn't even _mention_ that you were going to…"

"…not. If we're going to try again, we need more that those puny little power stars, we.."

"…GET BACK HERE, YOU SON OF A…"

At last, he skidded across the floor of the main hall, where Mario was glaring at him.

"What happened? It's time for dinner… well nearly, anyways."

"Was I gone that long?" Luigi asked. It must have been a long corridor.

"Yeah, come on, let's go get the others for an early dinner."

"'Kay."

Dinner went exactly like lunch, and with all the silence and evil eye looks from Daisy, Luigi completely forgot about the corridor. Finishing their meal, the four of them reached the stairs and were about to head in different directions. Luigi looked around. Not one but _two_ other people were here, and all the toads around them loved to gossip. Luigi gulped and headed up the stairs with Mario while Daisy and Peach turned to go up a second flight of stairs. He had tomorrow anyways. But his feet wouldn't take him any further up. He struggled with himself for a minute and then sped down the stairs and up the other set to Daisy.

"Daisy," he said panting as she whipped around. "Will… will you g-go to the ball with me?"


	6. Hopeful Hugs

Daisy's POV

Daisy blushed and smiled shyly at the same time. Finally, Luigi had asked her out!

_Nothing but exceedingly sweaty hands and stammering… I'm impressed. _Daisy thought to herself.

"Oh. Um, well, uh…" Luigi muttered, looking dejected. "That's alright. You don't have to go with me because you're feeling sorry for me." Honestly, how could he be completely blind towards her smile? He had done a good job of putting himself down his whole life.

"Don't be stupid. Of course I want to go with you!" Daisy said, the blush slowly fading off her face. She kicked Peach lightly and Peach half-skipped away, whistling what sounded like that theme song from Kingdom Hearts.

"You… WANT to go with me? Yeah, right. Get your calendar checked, Daisy. April Fool's Day isn't until… er, a long time."

"Luigi, you underestimate yourself way too much!" Daisy was getting annoyed. "Do you want me to say it slowly? I. Want. To. Go. To. The. Ball. With. You."

Luigi looked shocked. He was apparently not used to anything but insults because his already scarlet face somehow went a shade deeper. "Um, okay?"

Daisy could tell he was still unsure that she wanted to go to the ball with him. She sighed. "Luigi, I like you. I've liked you since we met, and I don't have a high opinion of myself or anything, but it's clear that you like me too. I'll even force you to go to the ball with me if that's what it takes. She hesitantly reached up and hugged Luigi, noticing that he was actually almost as muscular as Mario even though his lankiness suggested otherwise. Daisy pulled away before she did something stupid like end up kissing him in front of everyone. Peach would make her regret that later.

"B-bye," she said and octave higher than her normal voice.

Luigi clearly couldn't say anything as Daisy ran off to Peach's room.

"Soooooooo," Peach said. "Luigi's face was fun to watch when you hugged him."

"Urgh! I KNEW you'd be watching!" Daisy fumed. "Bye." She stormed out of the room. She walked to her room and slumped on her bed. What had she done? She had told Luigi that she liked him. She had hugged him. She had noticed the muscles that his lanky frame covered: definite Peach behavior. Luigi was probably freaking out on the inside right now. What. Had. She. Done? Daisy looked at the time on the fancy gold clock innocently ticking on the wall. Only five minutes had passed since she had embarrassed herself in front of only the whole kingdom. How did Peach kiss Mario like she did without her heart jumping out of her chest?

_Practice, _Daisy instantly answered herself. _She's draped over his arm whenever I see them both in the same place together. _Daisy still could feel her heart beating unevenly. Her thoughts all tangled, she fell asleep in seconds.

_Daisy woke up to find herself in a large white room with a spotlight in the center. And with it was Luigi. He held out his hands, beckoning to her. She slowly walked forward, realizing that she was wearing… a wedding gown? Luigi smiled and dragged her to the center of the room, where he started waltzing with her… _

_Oh, I was dreaming,_ Daisy thought. _I'm hopeless. _Dreaming _about him. Urgh._

Daisy realized that dreaming was the least of her worries. Luigi wouldn't talk to her the next day… or the next… or even the next, the day of the ball. Was he angry? Daisy didn't think so. Ah well. The ball was in two hours. He wouldn't be able to ignore her after that. She went over to Peach's room and started getting ready for the ball.


	7. A Beautiful Ball

Luigi's POV

_Stop hyperventilating, _Luigi told himself. _Breathe in, breathe out. Don't think about Daisy. Just put your tux on and GO._

"Hey, bro! Don't think you can just walk away from this!" Mario called, coming in and shoving the tux in Luigi's face. Forty-five minutes left. Luigi deliberately took a long time getting ready. Twenty minutes left. Luigi slowly walked towards the ballroom with Mario. Ten minutes left. His expression wouldn't be out of place at a funeral. Five minutes left. Luigi was positive that the clock hands were racing each other. Four toads heaved against the grand ballroom doors with all their might, and Luigi gasped. Peach hadn't left a square inch of the huge room undecorated. The ceiling was all the colors of the sunset and lumas giggled as they sprinkled tossed starbits to each other. Luigi walked down the beautiful carpeted stairs to the dance floor. Daisy and Peach weren't there yet, but most of the guests were. Luigi watched the band setting up on a platform near him. Daisy should have been here by now. Was she chickening out? Luigi gazed up at the entrance. The band was starting to play, and Mario was looking worriedly at the people starting to dance beside him. Finally, Luigi saw Peach walk in. She was wearing a pink dress that went well with her hair. But Luigi's eyes lingered on her only for a moment. Behind her was a goddess. Her long dark brown hair was done simply, but it was already perfect so there was no point doing it up. Her bright blue eyes looked like they had stars in them. Her dress, which really did have stars on it, was a dark velvety blue. This couldn't be Daisy. It couldn't. She caught him staring as she came down the stairs and gave him a wink.

_Now's the right time to hyperventilate, I think,_ Luigi thought. And then Daisy was beside him.

"You look handsome," she remarked. "Not that you usually don't."

Luigi blushed for the umpteenth time in the past few days. "And you look… you look…"

"Too girly?"

"No. I wanted to say beautiful, but that's more than an understatement."

"Thanks. I was afraid you wouldn't like it."

Daisy glanced at Peach who was mouthing something. "Luigi, the song's ending."

"Okay?" Luigi was confused. Daisy was looking at him expectantly.

"So…"

"What?"

"Are you going to ask me to dance?"

"Oh. Yeah. Um, what should I say?"

Daisy sighed. "Forget it. Just come on." She dragged him to the center of the floor.

"Daisy?" Luigi asked.

"What?"

"I… I can't dance!" he squeaked. Daisy rolled her eyes and grabbed his hands, guiding him to the rhythm of the music. Luigi realized that it wasn't that bad. He hadn't realized that he was dancing because he was staring at Daisy the whole time. As they talked, Luigi felt like it was more of a conversation than a dance. Luigi didn't realize that the music had come to an end until he saw a few people sitting down. He made for the chairs, but Daisy pulled him back.

"Peach is doing the contests right now anyways…" he complained.

"Hey everybody!" Peach called from the platform where the band was. "I've been watching all of you for the past year just for our annual superlatives contest! All you people that want to dance, this will only take a minute." Nobody believed her.

"Does she ever realize that nobody wants to have superlatives?" Luigi muttered to Daisy. She giggled and shook her head.

"…And the best dressed here is… well, me!" A few people clapped. "Bravest person… Mario! Prettiest hair… me! And sweetest guy… Mario!" Luigi didn't need to be a prophet to figure out who the rest of the winners were. He decided to make use of his time by getting them some drinks. When he got back, the contest was over (_Thank goodness!_ Luigi thought) and a song was wrapping up.

"You're gonna hate me for this," Daisy whispered, laughing quietly.

"Are they putting the spotlight on me?" Luigi asked.

"No."

"Shoving me into a tutu and doing ballet with me?"

"Close, but not quite as embarrassing." Daisy looked around as Peach cleared her throat loudly.

"And now, a request from Daisy…" she said, looking at them and winking.

"Just… just remember: your hands go here," she said placing his hands on her waist, "and mine over here."

"N-no." Luigi stuttered. "Daisy, you… you can't seriously expect me to slow da-" Daisy put a finger to his lips, and then they were dancing.

_One, two, three, one, two three, _Luigi found that counting out the beats in his head kept him from walking up to Peach, who was making little kissing noises at them, and tripping her.

_Heaven help me!_ he thought as Daisy rested her head against his chest. He started watching the clock. After two agonizing minutes, the song drifted into silence. He looked down and realized that Daisy was looking at him expectantly.

"What do I do now? We look like idiots!" he muttered.

"Well, most guys would… never mind" She blushed. "I thought you'd be tripping all over the place, but you can actually dance!"

"Do you have to sound so shocked about it?" Luigi asked. Daisy smiled.

"Sorry. Wanna go outside? Everybody else will be there in about twenty minutes anyways."

"Why not?" Luigi replied, and they walked out into the darkening sky.


	8. Colorful Kisses

Daisy's POV

Well, okay, Peach could have done a more extravagant ball, but Luigi dancing with Daisy had been wonderful enough to cover up any flaws. Daisy steered Luigi towards a small white bench under a small but very decorated tree. She glanced swiftly at him. He was striding forward and was pointedly looking away from Daisy with a somber, fixed gaze.

"Was it fun?" Luigi asked while settling on the bench.

"What?" Daisy replied.

"The ball."

"How could you ask that?" Daisy said angrily. "Is this about beating yourself up over something stupid again?"

"I don't know. Sometimes it seems like everyone expects more out of me. So much that I'm jealous of Mario. _Jealous_ of my own brother. Can you imagine that?"

"Yeah, but that's only because you can't understand that you're already perfect, Luigi. I wouldn't have liked you if you were Mario. I like _you_." Daisy saw Luigi gulp. "What?" she asked.

"Isn't it too early for commitment?" he asked nervously. Daisy laughed.

"Absolutely," she said. "I'm not expecting anything." Her mind was denying that statement.

_Of course you are, Daisy! Duh! Tell him you like him! Maybe he'll make a move or something, _her mind screamed.

"Is something bothering you?" Luigi asked. Daisy shook her head.

"Nothing," she sighed. "Do you want to go back inside?" _Nothing's happening here anyways._

"And dance?" Luigi asked incredulously. "No way!" He paused for a moment, then added, "Besides, I think I'm supposed to do something first. Well, Mario expects me to, at least."

"And that is…"

"Daisy, don't laugh because this is going to sound awkward, but am I supposed to kiss you now?" Daisy looked surprised for a second and then started laughing like a lunatic.

"Sorry… Luigi…" she gasped between chuckles. "You're just… so… funny!"

"That's a no, right?" he said, frowning. Daisy stopped laughing.

"No, Luigi. I was laughing because that's an absolute yes." She winced as Luigi quickly became the color of the pink in the slowly darkening sky. "I'm not saying you have to!" she added quickly.

"Let's… let's just get this over with." Daisy gave Luigi thirty seconds before speaking.

"Luigi? You all right?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Definitely. No problem. No problem at all. I could not be finer than this right-" Daisy held a finger to his lips.

"Luigi," she said, "You. Do. Not. Have. To. Do. This. Understand?"

"Yeah, and I'm thinking, why be afraid of something you haven't tried?" His voice wavered.

"Go ahead," Daisy said.

"Oh, okay." Luigi and Daisy both turned their heads at the same time and their noses collided painfully with each other.

"That went well," Luigi remarked sarcastically. "Which way should I turn my head?"

"I don't care! Left?"

"Isn't it easier to go right?"

"Fine! Right, then." They bumped into each other again because Luigi tilted his face to the left.

"I said right!" Daisy exclaimed.

"Oh, I thought you meant your right."

"Are you trying to put this off?"

"No. Both of us tilt our heads to _our_ right. All right?" Daisy nodded and pulled Luigi's face to hers.

"Or maybe I'll just kiss you now before you can run away." Daisy said softly. And she kissed him. And… and he kissed her back.

Luigi had the gentlest kiss ever. Daisy could hardly tell that his lips were on hers, and yet she could feel… a kind of spark running through her. Could this really be only his first kiss? She could feel his long arms encircling her, his hands running through her hair…

"S-sorry," he breathed, taking a step back.

"No problem at all," she mumbled. "You can have me anytime you want."

"I think we should go back," Luigi said quietly. Daisy liked the way he said "we" even though he meant it in a perfectly normal way.

"Nah, I think I'll go back and get to bed," Daisy said.

"Oh, well if you're going, then I have an excuse to go, too," Luigi replied, following her through the garden's side entrance. They walked in silence four floors up until they reached their separate staircases.

"See you tomorrow," Daisy whispered.

"Bye. Love you," Luigi said, his thoughts clearly drifting somewhere else.

"What?" Daisy asked. She had heard him perfectly, of course.

"Oh, nothing," he replied, turning crimson. "Just saying good-night." He turned abruptly and started walking up the stairs to his room. Daisy watched him disappear down the hallway before going to her bedroom herself.

"I love you too, Luigi," she said to herself as she pulled the covers over her head and slept a dreamless night.


	9. Awkward Actions

Luigi's POV

Luigi looked at the clock to find that he had slept till eleven in the morning. What had kept him? And then the events of the previous night came back to him. He touched his lips. Had they really been on Daisy's just ten hours ago?

_She really likes me,_ he thought. _I'm the luckiest guy on the whole freaking planet, and I spend my time wishing I were more like Mario? _He grinned to himself and went down to breakfast, his smile lingering even when he tripped down two flights of stairs right into Mario and spilled orange juice all over Peach, who for once didn't complain but instead winked at Luigi and whispered, "Kiss Daisy yet? Thought so. You guys didn't disappear yesterday – I mean today morning unnoticed." He caught Daisy's eye and blushed when she grinned at him by instinct at first, but then sobered up and walked over to him.

"Does… does you-know-what mean we're…", she made finger quotes, "'officially going out' now?" she asked nervously.

"Well, yeah, I guess. Peach pretty much makes the decision."

"Can I be my usual self? Or do I have to act Peach-ish?" she wondered out loud.

"_That's _what you're worried about? That I might convert you into a Peach double? I want to be with Daisy, not Peach."

"You had a crush on her for a while when we were little," she sulked. Luigi laughed.

"You kissed Waluigi around that time," Luigi said. "And, anyways,"

"I did it to make you jealous," they both said at the same time. Luigi put his arm around Daisy's waist. Already he didn't feel awkward doing it.

"Luigi?" Daisy asked.

"Hmmm?" he replied absentmindedly.

"Well, there's nothing else to do today, so…" She smiled. Luigi's face turned pale, and he drew back from Daisy.

"Daisy, you really can't be expecting… isn't it early… 15 and 16… you're too young…" he ranted.

"OH MY GOD! NO!" Daisy yelled as she realized what Luigi saw in her words. "No, no, no, no, no… You can't be serious. You CAN NOT be serious. I was talking about finishing that game of tennis properly today, you sick pervert!"

"Sorry," Luigi squeaked. "You're not, like, mad or anything, right?"

"I won't even honor that question. Come on, magical memory erase, whatever, and let's beat the crap out of that happy couple!"

Five minutes later, Luigi, Daisy, and Mario were waiting impatiently for Peach on the terrace. A quarter of an hour after that the four of them were walking down to the tennis courts.

"Luigi," Daisy muttered. "You can really play, right?" Luigi grinned at her and said nothing. She'd see for himself, and he wouldn't have to feel like he was bragging.

The two teams took their positions on the court. Mario seemed lost in thought.

"What was the score again?" he finally asked Luigi.

"Thirty-love," Luigi promptly replied. "We can still catch up, though!"

Don't be absurd, Luigi," Daisy said. She turned to Peach and Mario. "We _will _catch up, and then we'll screw you so bad…" she faltered off, obviously remembering that "screw" could also mean something else entirely and avoiding Luigi's gaze. Peach caught this small movement, and her eyes narrowed. Mario served the ball and Daisy came forward to take it. She narrowly missed the net and Peach volleyed it over to Luigi.

_Highball,_ Luigi thought. _What the heck. Might as well give it to them. _He stepped back and at the last moment hit an overhead at Mario. The ball bounced between his legs and got a good way away before Mario realized he had missed it. Beside Luigi, Daisy's jaw dropped. Peach was staring in shock as well. Only Mario was unsurprised. He casually retrieved the ball and served again. As Luigi unconcernedly hit another impossible-to-get ball at Peach, Mario began to look worried. They were tied. Another two points by, Mario and Peach scoring the first by serving while Luigi was turned around and Luigi and Daisy retaliating by quickly winning the other one.

"Deuce," Peach said and paused. She walked over to Mario and whispered something in his ear. He smirked and just as Peach served the ball, said, "They don't need to know the score, Peach, they know all about _scoring_ already." The racket slipped out of Luigi's hands and the ball went whizzing by him.

"Advantage Mario and Peach," Mario said. "Gosh, it feels weird speaking in third person. Oh, and by the way, after the game, will you _come _to the ballroom to help clean up, Luigi?" His serve went by Daisy, who was looking at Luigi worriedly.

"And GAME!" Peach yelled. "OH!" When they reached each other at the net, Daisy spat out some bubblegum she had been chewing, stuck it in Peach's hair, and made sure it was really tangled up before whispering, "That was cruel, my so-called 'best friend'."

"Oh. My. God." Peach said. "Run before I kill you, Daisy." Daisy grabbed Luigi and fled.

Later that day, Luigi heard Peach and Daisy talking to each other in low voices. Feeling a bit guilty, he crouched down and peered through the keyhole, giving up when he couldn't see them. He settled for just listening to the broken up conversation.

"Sorry, Pea…. didn't wan…. feel so awkward about…. you know…" Her voice dropped so low that Luigi couldn't hear her for a minute, "and I really don't wanna think about it right now…."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too," Peach said. "Sorry, I thought you had already done… I mean… you know, this moring…" (_Aha, _Luigi thought. _That's how she guessed._) "…and I figured that's what had appened…. bad…"

"It'll take more than that for me to forgive you," Luigi muttered, having heard enough. He rose and was getting ready to walk away when the door banged open.

"LUI… I mean, Luigi! You were eavesdropping?" Daisy glared at him. "Can't trust anybody anymore..." she muttered, and started walking away. Luigi wasn't going to give up that easily though. He walked with her and said, "Do you hate me?"

"Stupid, I don't hate you. I might not _like_ you right now, but people have their moments all the time. Wow, I sound like a parent talking to a toddler." She said.

"Thanks," Luigi said. "I really want to forget this, but Peach isn't helping."

"Nobody gives about her but her precious Mario," Daisy said.

"It'll take more than that to separate us."

"Really? Then I'd better let you know that I stole your jar of starbits to feed to the lumas the day you were trying to ask me out." Luigi laughed with her, but his mind was somewhere else. Another door had opened in their hallway of life. Would they go in?


	10. Terrible Timing

Daisy's POV

Daisy was still pretty angry at Peach for what she did the day before. Not wanting to see her, Daisy skipped breakfast and went outside. The stale air smelled like sawdust, bringing her thoughts to Luigi.

_Relationships are complicated, _she thought, absentmindedly sitting down and plucking grass. _Who knew it would get this serious so quickly?_

"Hey," Luigi's voice called.

"Where are you?" she replied.

"In front of you, o smart one." Daisy looked up. Luigi was crouching next to her.

"Hey," he murmured. "What's wrong? Is this about yesterday?" Daisy smiled faintly. Luigi was quick to read her face.

"I could say no, but the answer is obviously yes. Hey, wanna walk or something?" Luigi nodded and helped Daisy to her feet. They circled the garden a few times in silence before Daisy led the way into the woods. Birds swooped above them and 1-Up mushrooms gave the dim woods a faint glow.

"Wouldn't it be nice to be a bird?" Luigi asked. "So you could… fly away from everything and not come back?"

"I don't think so… birds… don't have strong emotions, like, you know, er, emotional attatchment…" Daisy said.

"Wh-who said anything about love? What love? I don't know of any l-love!" Luigi stuttered.

"You don't love me?" Daisy was hurt.

"No, Daisy, I'm secretly gay and I'm having an affair with King Kaliente's grandpa," he replied sarcastically. He realized he had said the wrong thing. "I do love you, Daisy, but… why did you bring this up?" Now it was Daisy's turn to be tongue-tied.

"Oh, er, no reason in particular. I was just, uh… never mind…" Daisy had actually been waiting to hear that wonderful "I love you" from Luigi. Hmph. She _was_ being Peachified. They had reached a tiny clearing.

"Do you?" Luigi asked.

"Sorry?"

"Do you love me?"

"Duh." Daisy rolled her eyes. "You can be so stupid someti… all the time." She hugged him, knowing that she was confusing him with her casual tone, and changed the subject. "Uh, aren't starbunnies the… cutest things?"

"Oh, yeah, they're cute, but once you realize how competitive and obnoxious they are, the feeling wears off. Kind of like you."

"Meaning?"

"You're irresistible, but once people see what a devil you are, they leave you alone." Daisy mock-punched him. "And a tomboy," he said, looking pointedly at her thumb-in fist. "I love it." He grinned. They walked in silence uncomfortably for a bit.

"So…"

"So…"

Silence.

More silence.

"Isn't this awkward?" Luigi said in a dry voice. Daisy couldn't tell if he was using sarcasm or not.

"Yeah, we must have spawned at least 200 gay people by now."

"Hilarious."

"But true." They talked for a few more minutes in this broken, robotic tone and lapsed back into silence. Daisy started counting footsteps. Thirty-seven, eighty-four, 167… Daisy heard Luigi sigh and looked up. He was looking at a small waterfall only big enough for four people to squeeze together on the top. The weathered rock was an odd, shimmering cream color that made the water flowing down it look like a sparkling rainbow. Luigi grabbed Daisy's hand and pulled her to the top, where some wet moss had been spread out to sit down on. Apparently Daisy and Luigi were not the first to visit this cascade. The two of them settled down onto the moss and saw that 1) the river flowing to the waterfall turned sharply to the left along the edge of the ground and forked at their feet, bringing their attention to the fact that 2) the back of the waterfall ended in a cliff that dropped down maybe hundreds of feet. They gasped in sync. Was there a more beautiful sight? Temerariously sitting at the edge of the cliff, they saw a large lake at the bottom of the cliff. Surrounding it was a sea of green trees that went on until all they could see was mist.

"It's so wonderful," Luigi gasped.

"Imagine it at sunset!" Daisy was mesmerized.

"Or late at night!"

"Is this our place?" Daisy questioned.

"Deal," Luigi said. He suddenly turned and kissed Daisy. She had not been expecting this. Her hands automatically wrapped around him, pulling him towards her. Her breathing sped up and she could feel Luigi's hands in her hair.

_Best day of my life! _She thought. _No, scratch that. Second best. First kiss is always the best._

"Now what has he done that I haven't?" Luigi murmured mysteriously, releasing Daisy while grinning from ear to ear.

"Sorry?"

"Oh, nothing." He looked at her. "Should we go home?" he asked.

"Um, how about we stay a while?" she said. "We can see how the sunset looks…" It would mean a little more than an hour.

"Sure!" he said eagerly. They talked about everything from whether Bowser Jr.'s teeth were false or not to betting kisses on which birds would reach a certain tree first. Finally the sunset came. Pink, orange, and purple washed over the sky and turned all the trees and plants into black silhouettes. If somebody had come up behind them, the would have said that they looked like a giant eye; the canopy of vines above Daisy and Luigi forming the outline, the perfect golden sun being the iris, and Luigi and Daisy together as the pupil. They stayed perfectly still as the colors in the sky receded into a dark blue and the stars started to wink, both unwilling to move. Daisy listened to the grasshoppers and owls and finally stood up. Luigi rose as well and they made their way to the castle carefully, trying not to get lost in the dark.

"Why are the lights still on?" Daisy asked.

"Aren't they usually?" Luigi inquired, who was still not used to staying in the castle.

"I guess it's because you guys are leaving tomorrow." Luigi had apparently forgotten about this, and judging by his expression, he hadn't packed.

"I don't want to go," he whined quietly. "This is the first time I had fun here." They approached the castle. As Luigi led the way to the door, it opened and Mario looked out, his expression stony. Luigi quickly went up to him, leaving Daisy behind, and bent down as Mario whispered something in his ear. His face took on the same look as Mario's, and he stepped inside, searching for something. Daisy followed him in to see a murderous expression on his face. There was only one thing that both he and Mario hated so much. She looked up.

Waluigi.


	11. Angst and Anger

Err, I finally cursed...... not too happy about it. But, I mean, COME ON! They're around 16. I'm way younger than that and I curse.

* * *

Luigi's POV

"Hello, cousin," Waluigi said, his fake smile hiding the twisted mind behind his face. Why did that bastard have to come now? Mario had said that this meant staying another week to "entertain our cousins". But Wario and Waluigi found entertainment only in beating Luigi up and trying to harass Peach and Daisy. Luigi didn't understand how Mario managed to keep a tightlipped smile on his face in front of them. How could they? HOW COULD THEY!?! Well, that was obvious. They found pleasure in Mario and Luigi's pain.

"Waz for dinner?" Wario grunted. "Make something nice, cuz, or else…"

"What would you like? Kennel Kibbles? I hear that's a favorite for dogs all over the world," Mario said with stoicism, his smile gone now that only the six of them were remaining in the room.

"Huh? I'm not a dog," he replied stupidly.

"Of course you are. I mean, what else will a bitch give birth to?" He dragged Peach out to the kitchen with him before the insult made its way through Wario's thick skull, leaving Luigi and Daisy alone with them.

"Oh, Luigi, I'm so tired. Why-why don't we _go to bed_?" Daisy said.

"Great idea," he said quickly. He pulled Daisy out of the room.

"Hey, beautiful, spend-a the night with us, will you?" Waluigi called to Daisy. Luigi gritted his teeth furiously. Why had they decided to visit so suddenly? He tried to remember if any special occasions were taking place. The closest that he could come up with was Wario's birthday, which wasn't until three weeks and wasn't a good excuse for why they were here. Luigi's sanity was quietly slipping away from him as he pondered all the questions they had.

"It doesn't matter why they came. Figure it out tomorrow," Daisy said, reading his puzzled and depressed expression.

"Good night," Luigi muttered to her before turning away. "At least we have another week… a painful week… together." He started up the stairs.

"Our place! Tomorrow! Nine!" Daisy called.

"'Kay," he mouthed back, too tired to yell. He reached his room and slumped on the bed without even changing, but couldn't fall asleep. It was almost four o'clock in the morning when he closed his eyes.

_Our place! Tomorrow! Nine! _Luigi thought as he got out of bed and glanced at the clock. Crap. It was 9:05. He raced to the kitchen, grabbed a bar, and ran through the woods. Daisy was perched on the rock, her expression impatient.

"Where have you been?" she asked, her tone that of a stern mother.

"I only got six hours, no, eight… four hours of… I only got enough sleep that I can't do simple math right now," he mumbled.

"Well, come on, we don't have years," she said, grabbing his hand and letting him lean heavily on her as she sat down again.

"Why did you want me here?" he asked.

"Oh… I was supposed to have a reason?" she asked.

"I came here for nothing?" he grumbled.

"Fine," she snapped. "Go home and sleep all you want."

"No," he muttered. "If I'm sleepy and I'm here, I might as well…" He rested his head on Daisy's lap and started to fake snore. He could tell that Daisy was still annoyed, but she let him be.

"What are you planning to do about Waluigi?" Daisy asked. "You can start by bringing a map with you if he takes you to the Dry Desert, of course…"

"That wasn't funny!" he said, a contradicting smile on his face as he remembered when he had been stranded in the desert by the creep a year or so ago. "I don't know why he's here… is it because of you?"

"Beats me," she said frowning. "He wouldn't, right?"

"Probably would." Luigi started twirling her hair.

"Huh," she said. "I hope he's over me… not to sound, like, egotistical or anything." She appeared to be lost in thought.

"Okay, well… they could be here just to give us hell."

"Most likely," she said dreamily.

"Or they're giving you and Peach another shot."

"I'll slap them."

"Good for you."

"Maybe… they lost their home and need a place to stay?"

"Please. They could steal enough for life in a single day."

"Which brings us back to them wanting to annoy us."

"This is infuriating," Luigi said through gritted teeth.

"Do they want to steal a power star?" she asked hopefully.

"Maybe, but they'd have better luck in our place…"

"Oh, yeah, Mario's 'souvenirs'." Daisy sighed. Luigi sat up and switched to leaning on her shoulder. He couldn't think of another reason why Wario and Waluigi would be here. Perhaps it was a coincidence? They were passing by and stopped for a visit? He voiced this opinion and Daisy quickly rejected it.

"Why?" she said. "They cross the Mushroom Kingdom several times, and they've never done something like this." She was right.

"I'm depressed," he sighed. "I feel so horrible for myself. And Mario."

"Whine much?" she muttered.

"You seem almost happy. You're not, like, cheating on me with Waluigi, are you?" Luigi said.

"Of course not!" she said, blushing furiously. "But, there's like this feeling… like some kinda… I don't know, supernatural forces are watching over us. And, like, they're writing these stories and stuff about us for the whole world to read, but with messed up facts. What I'm saying is that there's some me out there in an alternate universe that is in love with the creep."

"Luigi is now staring at you in disbelief." Luigi tried not to let the sarcasm get into his voice as he said, "I'm sure there are many supernatural gay stories about me and Mario posted on some kinda futuristic mail-like thing, too."

"Idiot. I was trying to be subtle about saying that I _don't _hate Waluigi, but thanks for screwing that up."

"You don't hate him? Aw, come on!" Luigi pleaded. "Why?" he added.

"Do I have any reasons to?" she said. "Except that _you _hate him, and that he's a cheap cheat," she stumbled at the alliteration, "and…" She blushed and wouldn't continue.

"He has a nose like a cherry?"

"Such a feminine male," she muttered. "Trust _you _to notice that." Luigi ignored this.

"He likes you?" he asked.

"He only does because _you_ do," she said while blushing further.

"He really is in love with you, he's just too proud to say it."

"And you were too… no offence, scared to say it." Luigi ignored the stinging comment.

"Why?" he repeated. He heard a rustle behind him and Waluigi stepped out and kissed Daisy for at least two minutes.

"Because I do that every once in a while," he said, grinning evilly. "What, are you just gonna leave it at that, coward?" He grabbed Luigi's hand as it came near his face and twisted it painfully. Aiming between Luigi's legs, Waluigi kicked him to the edge of the cliff, where he dangled at Waluigi's mercy. Great. His first fight… it was not going too well.


	12. Picture Perfect

**Somebody reviewed something that caught my attention. The end of the last chapter doesn't make a bit of sense. Sorry about that, I didn't try looking at it from anybody else's POV. Speaking of POV's, its Luigi's in the last chapter, so Waluigi's kiss feels like two minutes though it's much shorter in reality. He leaps on Waluigi afterwards, so Daisy doesn't get any time to react. She does eventually slap Waluigi... in this chapter. I should have mentioned that in the last chapter. Hope you guys like this chapter, and sorry about any confusions! XD**

* * *

Daisy's POV

Daisy hand stung from where she had slapped Waluigi. She had completely forgotten that there was nothing but bone behind that skin. She had gotten a little more satisfaction from kneeing him between the legs and ramming his face repeatedly with the small, pointy heel of her shoe. Luigi leaned heavily on her as she dragged him to the castle. She was scared when she saw how little he protested when she got tired of dragging him and slung him over her shoulder.

"Luigi, you okay?" she asked. What a stupid question.

"Yes, yes, the balsa koopa will be eight coins…" he mumbled.

"No…… we're heading for the castle…. You should start bett-"

"No, I don't take starbits," he muttered. "No… not even 175… Yes, from Sling Pod? No, coins only…" Daisy gave up.

"Hey, Daisy, Luigi looks – WHAT THE-" Peach exclaimed as she got near enough to see Luigi. "What… Luigi?"

"He's fine, trust me," Daisy said. "He got beat up by a younger guy with less muscle than him, is all." She rolled her eyes. As long as Luigi could ramble about his balsa bargains, he was okay. She had Peach help her as they carried Luigi across the moat and up the stairs. They lay him in his bed and crept out.

"Waluigi is pure evil!" Peach said. Daisy stared at her.

"The dawn shines upon you at last," she remarked. "Wario's the same, right?"

"Well, I mean, he kidnapped me a few times, uhhh, sided with Bowser…. every time…. and, he…."

"You talk about kidnapping like it's breathing."

"Yeah, well, a lot of villains find kidnapping me amusing." Daisy had always disliked Peach's indifference to being kidnapped, but now she felt bad for her.

"But… shouldn't Wario like you? As in, love you solely for the purpose of pissing Mario off?"

"No, because Mario didn't love me," she said. "And I'm not blaming him, because I didn't love him long after he started liking me."

"Pardon?" Daisy was shocked. They were the idol couple, and here was Peach, saying that they didn't love each other!

"No, no, that's not it. We love each other _now_, but at first the whole thing was pretty much an arranged _very_ premature engagement. Well, Mario liked me enough to risk his lives for me, but it wasn't like a true love thing. You and Luigi liked each other from the start." This wasn't entirely true. Luigi had told her when they first met that she was rude and bossy (the best insults a kid could come up with), and she had kissed Waluigi (her mouth still felt slimy some days) in retaliation. Luigi and Daisy had started liking each other about twenty seconds later. Well, she had started liking Luigi at least.

"Should we leave Luigi for an hour, or go in?" Daisy asked.

"I dunno, you decide."

"Leave him. I don't think he's very happy right now."

"Kay." She looked around. "Should we look for more secret passages or something?"

"Well, I guess, since we have nothing else to do," Daisy said.

Daisy and Peach always had fun finding hidden passages in the castle. They would spend the day twisting candles like in the old mystery movies, finding cracks in unusual places, and checking out Rotation Station whenever they played Mario Party 8 when they were bored. Then they would add whatever they had found to a map of the castle they were making. Whenever they thought that their map was complete, they would stumble upon another passage by accident, making the game more fun. Daisy especially loved it because it brought out another side of Peach.

"Where should we start?" Peach asked.

"I vote the mirrors by the banquet hall."

"That was the last place we went."

"Oh, right."

"Should we go with the usual?"

"What, the old unused dungeons?"

"No, the party games!"

"Right." They decided on Mario Party 8 on the end because the earlier ones were unclear and blurry all the time for some odd reason. Working their way from leaping some rather Sick and Twisted combos to stealing some Speedy Graffiti cans and spraying "secret messages" into the giant rocks, they finally ended up at Rotation Station. Daisy rolled her eyes at the prospect of searching the place over for the umpteenth time. At least they were now skilled enough at climbing those stairs that they didn't fall off and bruise themselves… much. Climbing up the first five steps, Daisy and Peach jumped onto their platform at the same time and were carried to the other side. Daisy stared into space, and snapped back to reality as 1) she rammed into the stairs and nearly tripped, and 2) she realized that something had been hiding in plain sight.

"Peach!" she called. "Stay on the platform once you get on that blue rising circle. Peach looked confused as she did what was told. Daisy pulled her umbrella from under her skirt and used it to switch off all the moving platforms, then leaped onto Peach's platform the moment the electric barrier between them vanished.

"Peach, you notice the paintings on the walls?" Daisy asked.

"Duh…"

"Yeah, well, you know how paintings do weird stuff if you ram into them?"

"Come on, Daisy, you KNOW that that only happens in places near enemies. The Mushroom Kingdom is safe. And even if the paintings _are_ penetrable, wouldn't that mean that all the hundreds of them across the palace are too? Somebody would've figured it out."

"But you can't just touch the paintings. You gotta do something… what is it…?"

"Spin-attack?" Peach offered.

"Yeah, that's it!"

"Sadly, the lumas here are more like pets to us. They need to be in space to be able to transform and help us spin, which they'll do someday, but that won't help us."

"If I could convince one?"

"I doubt it, Daisy." Daisy sighed. Why did only spin-attacks open the pictures? Spinning made your arms touch the painting multiple times. That must be it! Getting Peach to hold her legs in place in case she fell, Daisy reached out and tapped a 1-Up mushroom picture a few times. Nothing.

"Shoot," she muttered. "Do you think the pictures are just that… pictures?"

"Whatever they are, get back here so I can let go of your feet!" Daisy pushed off from the wall with her hands and tripped over Peach. "Stupid painting," she muttered, and stared as the maple frame turned cherry.

"What the…" she muttered.

"What?" Peach asked. Daisy ignored her and realized that only her insult could have caused the color change.

"You're such a beautiful frame," she murmured. "Sorry about that last comment, I tend to insult things I'm jealous of." She sounded like a fool, but the frame started lightning up, so she kept speaking. "That yellow goes so well with the beautiful green of the mushroom. The tints it draws out…" The frame was a bright white, and Daisy stood by Peach, both of them staring in disbelief as the frame glowed with a blinding white light and disappeared, the painting coming forward until it was in front of Daisy and depositing a glowing 1-Up mushroom at their feet.

"Well, I've heard 'Treat others as you want to be treated', but…" She stood over the mushroom and gained an extra life, though she knew it would fade overnight anyways.

"And there are hundreds of them…" Peach whispered.

"Come on, girl," Daisy said, smiling. "We got some picture frames to sweet talk."


	13. Shocked Stars

Daisy's POV

"NO!" Peach yelled as Daisy put a leg in a portal that opened into stone wall ruins with gravity spotlights dancing around. Daisy bumped her head into the top of a picture frame in shock and backed out of the portrait.

"What?" she asked crossly.

"Those are the ruins where Bowser was going to make a new universe. The whole place is now a mess of lava and that black hole could spring up any moment."

"Ah." Daisy blinked and smacked the frame until it turned into ebony and became canvas again.

"Be more careful next time!" Peach exclaimed. "We'll ask each other about the portals before we try them." Daisy laughed as she watched Peach step into a desert with pools of quicksand everywhere, considered letting her have it, then pulled her out by her hair. Peach laughed when she saw what had almost happened to her, an unusual reaction for her.

"Hey, it's Sunshine!" Peach exclaimed as she coaxed another frame open to reveal a sunny series of platforms and clouds. "Wonder why everything is so blurry and pixilated…"

"There are mounds of starbits in here!"

"Guess Mario didn't know about these power stars stashed in here when he went on all those adventures…"

"Awww, look at the cute piranha plants!"

"Cute?"

"My cute standards are extended to include things most people think I'm weird for."

"Oh. My. God." Daisy looked up to see Peach staring at a stone wall with a blue tile made of water at the end.

"Ummm, may I ask you a question?"

"A little too late for that, sweetie…"

"Isn't that the wall leading to Dire Docks?" Daisy said, ignoring Peach.

"Yep…"

"But… it's not supposed to exist! They covered up the portals more than a decade ago! The places were too dangerous!" Peach smiled.

"Yes, Daisy, but with all the portals in the castle, do you really think they would have filled in the whole wall? Think about it. You have a huge castle with tons of little hallways with portals at the end of them. You want to block all of them and the portals are impossible to move. Would it be easier to fill the whole hallway in or to simply place a wall at the entrance to hide the portal?"

"Wall," Daisy muttered. "Shall we go in and check?" They walked into the portal and moved a small pile of straw covering a mouse hole on the wall opposite to the Dire Docks portal, waited as the mouse behind it scampered for cover, and peeked though. Sure enough, they saw the red carpet on the floor of the hallway leading to the banquet hall.

"You do realize what we could do with this?" Daisy asked excitedly.

"Yeah!"

"Let's not tell anybody."

"Just the two of us is fine with me." They stepped out of the portal and headed to the north kitchen, one of the 64 rooms and 49 hallways they hadn't checked yet. Considering the size of the castle, only those many places left after six hours and forty-five minutes was quite an accomplishment and meant that they were nearly done.

"What will we find in the kitchen? The only portraits in there are of no help," Peach wondered.

"Never underestimate the power of the underdog – er, underroom, for in it lies the secret, well hidden in an unlikely place."

"Interesting proverb."

"I made it up."

"I realized that." Daisy turned around and started complimenting a fancy black iron frame with intricate spirals in it. It took ten minutes to soften the frame up; Daisy was not surprised since they had observed that the darker the frame was and the harder the material was, the grumpier the picture was, with a few exceptions.

"Hey, that's my room!" Daisy exclaimed.

"So? We've seen portals to a lot of people's rooms in the past few hours."

"No, this is different," Daisy said. Peach walked over and peered in.

"Oh my god! There's a secret passage right outside your room! And judging from that light over there, it must open out into the main castle in some unnoticeable place…"

"It really IS my room," Daisy remarked, peering down into the crack in the wall at her feet. "How long does this corridor go?"

"Only one way to find out," Peach said, starting towards the white light to their left. They came up to the light to find that it wasn't a light at all but a portrait of a long pebble path leading into nothingness with a snowy white frame. They walked out of the portrait to find that they were at the top of the staircase a little west of the one leading to the main hall. They turned back to open the portal but saw that the bright white frame was already glowing, so they simply walked back into the corridor.

"Weird…" Daisy said. "That frame must be seriously happy to let anybody in without a compliment."

"I know," Peach agreed. "But I didn't realize that two portals could lead to the same place. And we're going to have to do something about that painting. Some careless person could stumble into the painting and find out about the portals, or this passage at the very least.

"Come on, nobody would be that thick!" Daisy laughed. Peach didn't reply and they passed Daisy's room and went on into the darkness. The walls were obviously not soundproof because they could hear the conversations taking place in the rooms around them. The people in the rooms were obviously unaware of the passage because they talked in normal voices that could be faintly heard from where Peach and Daisy were. The most interesting thing they had heard after fifteen minutes of walking was about a Toad that was suffering from that bloated belly disease from RPG that only affected the Toads. Now and then they came across a room that they could go in due to a crack in the wall or portal.

"DAISY!" Peach yelled. Daisy ran to the portal that Peach was in and clapped her hands to her mouth. A spacious white room was packed with power stars… but not how Daisy wanted to see them. Crinkled as raisins and tarnished, almost lifeless power stars lay scattered on the floor. A few were making pitiful mewling noises, but most were too weak too make any sound. A huge machine with a spiraling pink sphere with a point at the bottom on the top was busy sucking the power out of a power star. The star was paralyzed, its eyes glazed in pain and its points screwed tight to the machine. As Daisy and Peach watched in horror, the star gave out and was reduced to the state of the others. The machine tossed the power star into the heap and grabbed another from a cage half-hidden by a generator.

"What is it DOING to those poor stars!?" Daisy asked angrily. It was nothing but a smaller version of the one in Gateway Galaxy, but it seemed to be working twice as fast. Daisy started towards the plug, but Peach held her back.

"Whoever is doing this will come back and realize that we've been here if we pull the plugs. Then they'll move everything, and what good will that do? We'll have to find out how to stop that machine for good and come back." Daisy relaxed and stepped back into the corridor.

"You're right," she said, sighing. "But we'll have to figure something out fast."

"Waluigi's number one!" came a voice from somewhere up ahead. Daisy whipped around and grabbed her neck.

"Ouch, whiplash…" she muttered. "What's Waluigi doing here?"

"I'm stumped." Daisy followed the shadowy figures of Waluigi and Wario until they turned towards a door. She stepped forward.

"Wario? Waluigi?" she said icily. "What are you doing here?"


	14. Painful Plans

Luigi's POV

_Damn it, Waluigi! _Luigi thought sluggishly as he opened his eyes. _You knocked me out for 24 hours! _He rolled over and looked at the clock to make sure his timing was right (he had actually been out for 22 hours) and attempted to get out of bed. After catching his foot on the bed frame and falling on the floor, wearing all his clothes backwards but his shoes, which were impossible to wear backwards, and falling over in shock after seeing his face in the mirror, Luigi finally arrived at his destination: his door. Grabbing the doorknob and using it to support himself, he clumsily opened the door and went outside.

"Oh my gosh, Luigi!" Daisy said popping out from nowhere. "You bruised up over yesterday." She winced as she realized that she was saying exactly the opposite of comforting words. She put her hands on Luigi's cheeks and ran her fingers over the faint blue and black patches.

"You'll be fine. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger… although it IS true that getting spoiled doesn't kill you but definitely makes you weaker…. I think you're supposed to infer that it means something bad… Never mind, I'm rambling. What I'm saying is, don't worry about it. You're great at tennis, you have a photographic memory, and you have the sweetest personality. What's Waluigi worth? He blackmails, cheats, lies…" She trailed off.

"Daisy… did something happen? Other than, well, him… kiss-ki…_kissing_ you?"

"Peach and I agreed on not saying…" she shook her head. "What am I saying? I _know _you wouldn't tell." She abruptly started walking towards an empty courtyard and gestured for him to follow. She waited until he sat down on a bench beside her and started.

"Luigi, do you remember how Mario always said about those convenient paintings everywhere on his journeys that opened up when he spun into them?"

"Yes?" he questioned, wondering where this was going.

"Well, most of the paintings in this castle are the same. Peach and I discovered that shortly after you were knocked out. And spin-attacking is only one way to make them open. You can also… this sounds weird, but sweet-talk them."

"Being nice to pitures?" Luigi asked, laughing. Daisy frowned.

"Not exactly the paintings, but the frames they're in. We experimented with some and found… oh, Luigi…"

"What?"

"One of the frames is high or something and it let us in without a compliment. Which is dangerous, because some careless or stupid person could accidentally stumble into it." Luigi thought. Why did that sound insulting? And then he remembered and blushed.

"I've been there," he muttered.

"What?" Daisy asked sharply.

"I've been to that place... a few days before the ball, I think… It's a long, dark corridor with rooms all around it, right? The second nearest room to the frame is yours, I don't remember what the first is…"

"Yes, you're right… the first is one of the kitchens…" she said wonderingly. "Oh, oops, I didn't mean that you were stupid or careless!"

"That's fine," Luigi said, smiling. "But what did you want to tell me about it?" Daisy grew sad again.

"Somebody's planning something… they made a smaller model of the sucking machine in Gateway Galaxy and they're sucking the energy out of power stars! They must have done 200, maybe 250 by now… those poor things!" She looked at him pleadingly as if she expected him to come up with a plan. Then Luigi realized something.

"It's not just power stars… whoever's doing this needs more power than that." Daisy looked shocked and angry.

"You KNEW about this!?! And you did NOTHING!" she yelled.

"No, no," Luigi quickly assured her. "When I was lost in that corridor I could hear the things going on in each room. I hadn't thought about most of them, but I remember something that somebody mentioned that makes sense now, after hearing about what you saw. I hadn't realized at the time that you could go in the rooms through the pictures. What was it that he said? Oh yeah, it was something like "we need more than puny power stars, and we gotta try something again".

"What will they use?" Daisy asked.

"I really don't kn – scratch that. I DO know… Grand Stars."

"But who?"

"The question is, how?"

"Why is the real problem."

"And when and where will they do this?"

"Should we tell somebody else?" Daisy asked with a worried expression on her face.

"Peach and Mario, but nobody else," Luigi replied. He didn't want the kingdom to worry, didn't want people to know about the picture frames, and especially didn't want Peach to get mad at Daisy because of what _he_ told people about this. He squeezed Daisy and they split up to get Mario and Peach. In the end, they hadn't needed to split up because Mario and Peach were making out together on the brink of a fountain, so they settled down there and repeated everything they knew to each other. Luigi was a little smug when Mario ended up being the only one who knew absolutely nothing about the whole affair.

"This is terrible! Bowser is obviously behind it!" Mario said, panicking.

"That's what we're supposed to assume, Mario," said Daisy, "but don't forget that Waluigi and Wario are involved somehow, and they normally aren't the biggest Bowser fans."

"They've formed truces before," countered Mario. "What do you say, Peach?"

"You're _obviously_ right, Mario. Sorry, Dee," she said. "Luigi?"

"I…" Luigi didn't know what side to pick. He was positive that Bowser was involved, but Daisy was right about not making assumptions with no clues whatsoever. "Daisy has a point, but if we had one guess, I would say Bowser. But… you guys are trying to kinda piece two opposite corners of a puzzle together. If we're going to get anywhere, I say we corner Waluigi and Wario. Waluigi won't say anything unless…" he glanced at Daisy and cleared his throat. "Well, he would lie if we bribed him, but Wario would do many things for money."

"Should we corner Wario, then?" Mario asked.

"I think we should go with both of them," Luigi suggested. "Waluigi's a smart guy. He can ruin everything in seconds."

"Will it work?" asked Peach anxiously.

"It will definitely work better than sitting here questioning our best and only plan," she retorted. Peach flicked her on the forehead and whipped out a pink leather notebook and a fountain pen from under her skirt.

"Exactly how many things do you have down there, Peach?" Luigi asked timidly.

"You haven't seen the "portable" makeup set and six spare pairs of shoes yet," Daisy said dryly. "Consider yourself lucky."

"Here Luigi," Peach said, handing the notebook and pen to him. "You're the best artist, so get a move on." Luigi took the pen and flipped the book past the fashion designs till he found a blank page.

"Thank you," he said. Daisy grinned, apparently at his accepting the compliment rather than denying it. "Umm, what am I drawing?"

"Oh. Right. How we're going to get the Wario brothers."

"Okay… So…"

"Maybe we should figure out what to do before drawing it."

"We have a genius," Luigi muttered under his breath. He thought about lures for both of the brothers. Wario would be controlled by money, but Waluigi only seemed to want Daisy.

"Daisy… would you kill me if I suggested you try being… er, _seductive_ towards Waluigi?"

"Try and you'll see for yourself," she almost growled.

"Okay, okay, it was just a thought," he said hastily. He was actually glad that she disagreed.

"He likes beating you up, Luigi," Mario suggested.

"Does every solution have to be this painful for me?" Luigi grumbled

"What's your brilliant idea, then?" Peach questioned.

"No, no way, you guys can't gang up on me… Daisy?"

"I hate to break it to you, but I'm not the kind of person who would sacrifice the world to Bowser so my boyfriend doesn't get beaten up. We'll use you as bait, Luigi, but I won't let anything happen to you.

"Promise?" Luigi asked. Daisy pretended not to hear him.

"That's settled, then!" she said, grinning, and got up.

"Hey! Daisy! Wait, you didn't promise! Hey… HEY!" Luigi gave up and started to go in to make sure the first aid was stocked up.


	15. Waluigi's Wish

**Hey guys! Sorry it's been about forever since I posted a chapter... this one is over twice as long as the usual and it's from Waluigi's POV. I've started to feel sorry for Waluigi... dangerous habit. Should Daisy go to Waluigi for a little bit? I think the story's getting sorta boring. Tell me what you think!**

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Waluigi's POV

"Geddup, you fat lump of lard!" Waluigi snarled.

"Beanpole," he muttered.

"ATTACK!" Walugi yelled for no reason whatsoever, grabbing the bedside lamp and swinging it around to come in contact with Wario's head. Wario ducked and knocked the wind out of Waluigi by tripping him and then sitting on him. Typical morning.

"You are being lucky," Waluigi said, struggling for breath. "I'm-a not allowed to rip up the room until all the star business is over and we sneak-a out."

"Fifty," Wario said.

"FIFTY!?! Usually you make me give you ten!"

"Yeah, well I won't be a-falling for that fake coin trick this time."

"Surrender… now get off me before I suffocate!" Waluigi dusted himself off once Wario released him and walked over to his chest of real coins. It was lucky that he had kept a layer of fake coins on top of his real ones in case Wario figured out he was using fakes. He pulled out the key dangling on the piece of string wrapped around his thigh, and uncomfortable place, but one that even Wario wouldn't attempt to steal from.

"Here you go," he grumbled, passing Wario all the fake coins.

"That's only thirty-five!" Wario said.

"Thirty-five? You sure?" Waluigi asked. He counted out fifteen real coins and gave them to the miser. He could steal them back later… He yanked the door open and stepped into the corridor to see Luigi strolling by whistling the tune in Dire, Dire, Docks (why there was pretty music playing while he was fighting for his lives in that level, he had no clue) and glancing his way. Being in no condition to pulverize the green man at the moment, Waluigi settled for a "See ya later, Lui-ser!" and continued on towards the nearest door so he could sneak a peek at Luigi's reaction. Relief, obviously, and… disappointment? Did he _want_ his face rearranged? Well, obviously, who would want the face _he_ currently had…

"For the last time, Miss As-long-as-Mario-saves-the-day, you are _not _letting Luigi get beaten up for Mario to get all the glory!"

"Wow… I only _mentioned_ that Mario should be the one to put a stop to it while you guys round them up… You are way too defensive of your boyfriend."

Waluigi edged closer towards the voices, noting that he was in the courtyard with the huge mushroom patch (he still hadn't figured out all the names). He was unable to recognize the almost-whispers, but judging by the conversation, they were obviously Daisy and Peach. He skillfully scaled a nearby tree and perched between two branches to see where they were, finding them behind a green bush by Peach's contrasting pink train.

"So whatcha gonna do about it?"

"Never mind that, what are we going to do about that room?"

"Luigi tried this morning, but the creep was being nice for once… exactly when we need that evilness." Strange, that sounded more like Daisy's voice than Peach's… No, it couldn't be, _she _would never be so mean to Luigi… The branch beside him rustled as he scratched his head and Peach and Daisy's voices faltered.

"Great idea, Peach, deciding to talk in the courtyard," said Daisy sarcastically. "Sure, it's an almost great place to hide, but it's not exactly soundproof. Let's get outta here." Both of them stepped out from the bush, and Waluigi noticed that the bush hadn't rustled even slightly. Strange. Daisy gave the tree Waluigi was in a piercing look and he held his breath until she turned around. She paused by an apple tree near the opposite end of the courtyard and plucked a blood red apple from it, turning it around and flicking it. Waluigi leaned forward to see more closely what she was doing.

_WHAM! _Waluigi resisted the urge to yell as he reeled, his eye filled with throbbing and stabbing pain and swelling shut already under his hand. Daisy had flung the apple across the courtyard into Waluigi's face with surprising strength and accuracy.

"Come on, Dee, there's nobody there. Stop with the paranoia… if somebody's abducted in the end it will be me, right?" Waluigi resisted the urge to laugh at Peach's reference to Bowser's lack of originality, his eye throbbing more painfully as he pressed his lips together, and waited until the two disappeared into the castle. He pulled his now numb legs out from under him with his hands and jumped down, his knees buckling under him when he hit the ground. He kicked a rock into a baby blue luma, which dropped the starbit it was munching and started crying. Its mother rushed over and patted its arm and attempted to kick the rock back at Waluigi, but it missed by a foot and Waluigi went back into the castle the way he came and headed to breakfast, Daisy and Peach's conversation echoing in his head. What was that about? Something involving Luigi… Daisy seemed to be mad at him, the way she called him a creep… And what was that about Peach's abducting joke? Did they suspect him? Wario? Bowser? Hmm, well whatever the part about Luigi was, Waluigi would make sure it went wrong. He changed the direction of his thoughts, starting to think up additional excuses for his and Wario's extended visit. His old one had been the usual "just passing by", but since his week was running out and he _still _hadn't managed to finish the star business thanks to Daisy and Peach, he needed a new reason for staying.

_I could fake an injury, _he thought. _Not too hard with all those staircases. Or better yet, I could push Wario off myself and then I'd have over a month while his leg heals to finish everything up. It's not like he's smart enough to help out anyways… _Just as this thought entered his mind, he reached the breakfast table where Wario was still pigging out on croissants and starbit muffins.

"'Sup." Waluigi sighed. It was one thing to be too lazy to say an extra syllable and another to apparently be so overcome with fatigue that no emotion was shown in a question.

"Me wishing you weren't so idiotic so that _you _could be the one working and I could lay around so wisely communicating with one syllable sentences."

"Oh." He seemed to debate between saying something or saving his breath. "What?"

"'What' as in, 'What are you doing', 'What did you say, my walnut sized brain can't understand such genius things', or 'Why the hell are you staring at me like I have six heads'?"

"First one."

"Okay, well, I'm working on a new excuse for why we're here, since Bosser won't let us live if we leave empty handed. I'm gonna try one out soon," he added, grinning.

"'Kay. Well, break a leg," Wario said. Waluigi snorted and started laughing uncontrollably as Wario raised an eyebrow, having no idea how literally Waluig was going to take it.

_You gave me permission, turd, _he thought. _Don't come crying to me later._

"Bye, freak," Wario said slowly and then grinned back. "But since I'm your most annoying nightmare, I'm a-letting you know that your 'one true love' is dissing you right this instant with her boyfriend." Waluigi stood up suddenly and instantly regretted the action as his calves collided painfully with the ebony coffee table in front of him.

"WHAT?!?" he yelled. "Forget Daisy, but that stupid cousin of mine…!" His thoughts took an optimistic turn. This was great, now he had a perfectly reasonable excuse for the Toad Squad when they questioned him about Luigi's murder! Wario lumbered off without hitting the table that Waluigi had so painstakingly moved forward for him. Waluigi stood absentmindedly for a second, caught himself, ran towards Wario and leapfrogged over his back, then slid down the stair rail. As he went down, his mind followed the same path. What was so unpleasing about him? Stupid, stupid, stupid Daisy. Stupid, stupid him for still wanting her and having hopes that even he knew were naive. He passed Peach's room and slid down another set of stairs to find the two lip-locked in a corner.

_Stop, _Waluigi pleaded. _Please…_ Invisible metal claws ripped through him and sent spasms of agony tumbling through his chest, and then there was numbness. No feeling, no thoughts… Had he really grown to care for Daisy _this _much? He had stalked Daisy just to annoy Luigi in the beginning, but now… Why? Why him? The despair turned to anger. Why him? Just then, the two broke apart and Daisy saw Waluigi over Luigi's shoulder. Her eyes widened and she said something to Luigi.

"What's _he_ doing here?" Waluigi read on her lips. "It's oo oo!" Oo oo? That could be… Cocoon? Maroon? Blue moon? _New_ moon? Too soon? Too soon sounded right, it went with the whole "scheming" thing. Daisy's next word confirmed his theory.

"Improvise," he read. Okay, time to mess things up. He slid off the edge of the stair rail he had so absentmindedly and precariously been perched on and charged Luigi as he turned around. Luigi shoved Daisy aside (stupid cousin, of course Waluigi wasn't going to hurt _Daisy_…) and gasped as he took the full impact of Waluigi's tackle, more powerful than usual from his anger. Waluigi attempted to kick Luigi's shin and gasped as a jolt went through his left arm from his inner wrist to his shoulder. He stumbled over and tripped over his own legs. As he looked up he saw Daisy looking both surprised and pleased as she stared at her hand with two fingers held out – a sign language "h"… "h" for the hand that had shocked him, "h" for the hurt that had been inflicted not just physically, "h" for the happiness Daisy had gotten from temporarily paralyzing him, "h" for hate, what made her happy to see his pain, "h" for the hunger for Daisy that still lived inside of Waluigi's heart hopefully and hopelessly at the same time…

Waluigi snapped out of his reverie as Luigi slowly stood up and muttered to Daisy, "When did you figure out that one?"

"Peach gave me the theory," she replied. But since I've never tried this before I doubt I'm KO standard yet, so I suggest we run." Waluigi sprang to his feet as Daisy and Luigi took off and pelted after them. His arm still felt like it had been electrocuted, but Waluigi steeled himself and reminded himself that he didn't need his arms to run.

_Need… arms… to run… _Waluigi thought two minutes later. He had assumed that Luigi's lack of traction and his control of it would give him an advantage, but with his left arm numb and his right arm being used as a cast, Waluigi was deprived of railings and walls to use for support as he stumbled after Luigi up and down staircases and through corridors. Inch by inch Waluigi started to lag behind. Now he could only see Luigi turning at a corner as he rounded the previous one.

_Where are we going?_ Waluigi wondered. Luigi seemed to know exactly where he was headed, his run somewhat casual and confident. And then Waluigi saw that he was headed towards a painting that most people would consider a solid wall…

_They know, _Waluigi thought. _It _wasn't_ an accident when the princesses saw us! _The obvious thing different about the familiar painting was that it was higher up than before, not "accidentally-stumble-through-able" anymore but only reachable to humans by jumping onto a table situated in front of it and impossible to get at all for the much shorter Toads, lumas, Yoshis, and Koopas. Something else was different as well, but Waluigi couldn't quite put his finger on it until the frame turned into bright moonstone.

_Ah, the frame was changed,_ he thought. The frame had been the translucent white color that it was now originally, but it was changed to an interesting shade of brown lighter than maple with a pinkish tone in it before Luigi turned it to moonstone again somehow...

_Strange, _Waluigi mused. _I always thought it was the painting that let me in, not the frame. So that would mean that only moonstone frames let people in. Or white ones. Whichever. And there is something you can do from a distance that changes frames… Of course, somebody could be changing it from the inside, but I don't think that's it… But if frames _can _change color, does that mean _every_ frame has the ability to lead people someplace?_ Waluigi's train of thought was interrupted as he had to jump onto the table against the wall below the frame to grab the top of the frame and swing his feet up into the picture. Letting go of the top of the frame, Waluigi braced himself expecting a short fall to the ground due to the new position of the painting and cursed when his feet immediately hit the floor and he fell forward. Cursing again as the side of his face was smashed against the floor (his hands had not been free to break the fall), he got up and shook his head while briefly wondering how the whole passage had moved with the position of the painting. Luigi had fortunately make the same mistake about the floor as Waluigi, but he was already on his feet and getting ready to sprint, so Waluigi once again took off after him. Waluigi followed him down two more corridors and skid to a halt as Luigi unexpectedly dived into a room on the right and Waluigi passed it. Backtracking, he went into the room and saw that Luigi was fumbling with the lock on a door on the other side. He stepped forward, but stopped. That couldn't be right, the door was unlocked…

Luigi whirled around to look at Waluigi's feet, then pressed an eight on a numeric keypad on the wall, most likely having already pressed the rest of the code. Too late, Waluigi dived towards him and was trapped mid-dive by a wall of steel bars that shot down towards two electromagnets on the floor and landed on his right leg. Pain made it impossible to think as the bars and the magnets slowly won against his leg and he felt a crack. Thankful that he couldn't feel any more pain than he already felt, he looked up and saw Luigi looking horrified as he typed in the code again (_5352493118, _Waluigi memorized) and the bars lifted again. Daisy ran into the room having just caught up with them and her eyes widened at the sight of Waluigi's mangled leg.

"Lemme get Peach, she'll help," she said, running back out.

"Peach?" Luigi asked, but Daisy was too far away to hear.

"Why Peach?" Luigi repeated minutes later as Daisy returned with Peach and a first-aid kit on steroids.

"Who do you think is fretting by the doctor and asking about every little detail every time Mario breaks a bone?" Daisy asked, amused. "She's even mended a few herself when a doctor wasn't handy… how many was it, Peach?"

"Eighteen," she replied while soaking a wad of gauze like stuff in some kind of thick off-white liquid.

"What? He's only broken two, and that was when we were little!" Luigi exclaimed. "And you call eighteen a _few_!?!"

"Those were at your house," Peach said. "He breaks at _least_ one bone every time he saves the world. He gets them fixed here in the castle before going home. Must have been keeping quiet about it so you wouldn't be worried, he's such a brave little warrior…" Luigi grunted and Daisy rolled her eyes. "Anyways," Peach continued, "why are you so surprised? You didn't think that Mario escaped all those thwomps unscathed, did – _what_?" Her last comment was directed toward Waluigi who had gasped and squealed "Ow!" a few octaves higher than normal (his bedspring voice was _not_ made for shrillness) as Peach took his leg and moved it slightly upwards. She was not he only one who had spoken.

"What?" Mario's voice repeated from somewhere behind Waluigi and he turned around.

"Come around to this side, we're about to put these bars down again," Luigi said. "say, why didn't you even _mention_ all those bones you broke?" Mario dismissed the question with a wave of his hand and a "doesn't matter" expression, but his proudly puffed chest countered that. Waluigi watched as Mario walked out the door, turned left, and reappeared at the door on the opposite side where Luigi, Daisy, and Peach were. Daisy typed in the code in and the bars once again fell down, sealin Waluigi off from the rest of them. Waluigi took the moment to analyze his surroundings now that the pain in his rock-hard gauze covered leg was comparatively numb. The steel bars were secured to the ground by electromagnets, and Waluigi's recent experience had proven that he was no match for them. The bars cut off a tiny triangular portion of the room for Daisy, Luigi, Mario, and Peach to squeeze into, leaving the rest of the room – a generous amount of space for a cell – free for Waluigi. Well, more space meant more possible escape routes, that was good. Waluigi sized up the distance between the bars and the button that opened them. About five feet, so he would still be slightly over two feet from the keypad even after stretching his long arm through the narrow bars. Perhaps he could hack a piece of the wall off… _they_ didn't know he had a retractable pocket knife hidden in his sleeve… Daisy followed his eyes towards the wall and keypad and it was scary how she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

"So you don't waste time and energy later, Waluigi," she said, "let me fill you in on _why _this room is escape proof. One, even if you _did_ have that flimsy knife – Peach took it while fixing you up – (Waluigi checked his sleeve and Peach held up his knife) you still wouldn't be able to cut that wall up. The stone is fake and therefore too flimsy for any real use and the wall behind it is titanium. Two, every time this door behind me is locked –" Daisy closed the door and turned the lock on the doorknob, causing a second set of horizontal bars to pop out from both sides of the wall behind the first set, joining together in the middle, "– this happens."

"I think he might have seen the code…" Luigi admitted guiltily.

"Did you?" Daisy asked Waluigi. Waluigi arranged his features into a surprised expression.

"What code?" he asked. The lie was flawless, but nobody in the room believed that he of all people wouldn't have noticed the keypad that activated the room's defenses.

"He saw it…" Daisy sighed.

"Well, that's alright, isn't it? Anyways, the code changes everyday at midn – OW!" Daisy had stepped hard on Mario's foot, but it was already apparent to Waluigi what he had been about to say. Midnight. He checked his watch, but found that it was broken from his fall in the corridor earlier. Ah well. He had at least ten hours if not more.

"Erm…Should we question him now?" Luigi asked hastily, trying to cover Mario's slipup.

"Like you'll ever get anything out of me," Waluigi snarled.

"Oh, we don't have to," Daisy said brightly. "We only brought you here because you're perfectly capable of interfering with the _real_ questioning. Wario will supply the answers to all our questions once we pay him… he already agreed to do so!" Damn, she was right. It looked like they thought this one out after all.

"Shall we go?" Peach asked.

"Yes!" Mario replied. "Let's eat, I'm starv – OW!" Daisy had stepped on his foot once again.

_Thanks for being such an idiot, Mario. Now I know it's luchtime, _Waluigi thought. He watched as the four left the room and locked it again and stuck his arm through one of the squares formed by the horizontal bars, delighted to find that his arm actually fit through. The ceiling was made of beams… Waluigi would easily be able to get at one of those beams if he scaled the bars…

"Oof!" Waluigi huffed as he tried to climb the bars with one leg and fell down. Stupid leg. This place probably had security cameras too, and now everybody would be laughing at him.

_Break a leg, Wario?_ he thought. _What a sick joke._


End file.
